Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, doesn’t need a jacket to ruin Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s career. The Freedom Caucus co-founder is as famous for flouting congressional norms, like the unspoken decorum requirement to wear a suit, as he is infamous for brawling with the leaders of his own party.
Jordan is sizing up McCarthy, a California Republican, thinking about going against him in the coming race to replace outgoing House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis. “I’ve had colleagues encourage me to consider that,” the Ohio Republican said while flanked by his three dozen Freedom Caucus colleagues. “I’m open to that.”
That race won’t start until the moment Ryan puts the gavel down, and Jordan said as much: “The most important thing over the next six months is doing the right thing so we keep the majority.”
[Related: Jim Jordan suggests Paul Ryan is stepping down because tax reform was his ‘papal conversion’]
Unless limited government and draconian spending cuts suddenly come back in vogue, Jordan doesn’t have a chance at becoming speaker. What Jordan and the Freedom Caucus can do is play spoiler to McCarthy, a role they are more than comfortable reprising. Jordan’s little band of conservatives made Ryan speaker by blocking McCarthy in 2015. Three years later, they can do it again — this time on behalf of Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La.
While Scalise has publicly declined to challenge McCarthy, he is the second option and he is preferable for conservatives. McCarthy was an ally of Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. Scalise, at least, has conservative credentials due to his time as chairman of the respected Republican Study Committee.
But the Freedom Caucus doesn’t seem content to just play kingmaker. The current chairman, Mark Meadows, R-N.C., renewed his push for conservatives to have a seat at the leadership table as soon as Ryan made his retirement announcement. And much more interestingly, on Friday Jordan shoved aside an establishment olive branch when he slammed a proposed Balanced Budget Amendment as a gimmick.
In the Daily Signal, Jordan wrote:
Let me tell you something. A much more important question than who’s going to be the next speaker, who’s going to be the speaker next year, is what are Republicans going to do this year?
Are we going to get back to doing what they elected us? What the American people elected us to do on Nov. 8, 2016? Are we going to get back to doing what we told them we were going to do? The mandate of that election, or are we going to keep doing pretend things like this?
Panning the Balanced Budget Amendment and mocking the speaker scramble, Jordan signals that policy is also on the table this year as part of ongoing leadership negotiations. Unless McCarthy shows a willingness to push the party to the right, the Freedom Caucus is threatening to blow his ambitions to pieces. They couldn’t care less how things look.
